


cool guy syndrome

by oredatte



Series: dave strider pity party: the movie [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Healing and Processing, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, POV Dave Strider, Past Child Abuse, and also karkat is there, dave character study about healing and trauma and sexuality, dave deals with his trauma, dave ends up okay! and karkat ends up okay!, happy healthy boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 04:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17501480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oredatte/pseuds/oredatte
Summary: Dave Strider is a lot of things. He's cool, he's calm, he's collected. He's not an abuse victim, right? Or gay? Or in love with his best friend?Nah. No way. He's too cool for that, isn't he?Updated 3/9/2019





	cool guy syndrome

**Author's Note:**

> hey yall! this is a dave character study that ive been working on for... a long time lmao. i tagged it canon compliant but idk i have a memory problem and i havent read homestuck in like... years so it might not be perfectly compliant but it should be pretty close. also i had to learn html to code the pesterlogs so hopefully that all looks okay!!
> 
> as far as homophobic language goes, the f-slur is used four times during an intense confrontation, but other than that its more implied. hopefully it doesnt upset anyone too bad--dave accepts himself, and ends up happy, as it should be. be warned tho this is p Heavy and dave describes some of the abuse so like be careful!! it ends ok but its a tough ride
> 
> updated 3-9-2019: should be a bit more cohesive and coherent, with some stuff added at the end!

Your first word was “bwo”, which you guess makes sense because he sure as hell wasn’t much of a father to you. He was 18 and half idiot, half asshole, and sometimes you wonder why he didn’t leave you to die in that crater.

Sometimes you wish he did.

As an infant, he actually did almost kill you a few times. You only know this because he would tell the stories to his lays like a hunter brandishing about the corpse of his latest kill, attaching the enormous antlers to the hood of his truck just to make other hunters jealous, like narrowly avoiding first degree murder is something to be proud of and flaunted.

He would bring his conquests to the apartment late in the night, once he was done with his DJ gig, and fuck them on his nasty futon while you hid your head under your pillow and prayed he’d be done soon. Of course, none of them knew about you—it’s unsexy of him to be a ‘parent’, right?—so if you made any noise, you’d be punished. You wanted to blast music to drown out the wanton moans, but your headphones would always mysteriously disappear the morning before he brought someone home, though you’re not stupid enough to believe it wasn’t his doing.

You still don’t know why. What did he gain from that?

He fed you solids too early, almost drowned you in the bathtub twice, nearly dropped you from the roof of your apartment building more times than you can count, and let you eat anything and everything you found on the floor. The people at the Pediatric ER reception desk knew the two of you by name, and the only reason he wasn’t reported to CPS was because he was fucking two of the doctors and three of the nurses.

The apartment was a deathtrap, a powder keg, an accident waiting to happen. He never baby proofed it, and one day you stuck your ring finger into an outlet whilst crawling around unsupervised.

You still can’t move it properly.

When you were five, you spilled apple juice on his brand-new turntables and he was so angry he locked you in your room for three days. Or, at least, you thought he was angry. He didn’t say anything, or take off his shades, or react in any visible way. He just swaggered his way over to you and lifted you by the back of your shirt like a naughty kitten before tossing you bodily into your room and calmly closing the door. You pounded the door for over an hour while you heard him playing Xbox in the next room.

So, yeah, you figured he was pretty angry.

On your first day of first grade, he decided that you no longer needed him to walk you to school. “You’ve been going there for a year. You should know by now,” He said, pushing you out the front door like a bag of dirty laundry. You sat by the door and cried until he let you back inside. You didn’t go to school that day, and he punished you by taking the mattress out of your room.

You didn’t get it back for two weeks. Your back still hurts sometimes if you sleep on something hard.

One day in second grade, a little boy pushed you on the playground and you scraped your knees. You went home to whine to him about it, and he sneered, telling you that a real man would’ve kicked the shit out of that kid. What kind of idiot are you, just letting that kid fucking push you like that? Are you a little bitch? The next day, you beat the snot of out that kid and rubbed sand in his eyes. You got called to the principal’s office, where he was already waiting for you, and got told off for over an hour. Your brother nodded along and told the principal that he told you not to retaliate, and when you opened your mouth to dispute him, he shot you a look so cold you were suddenly afraid. You said nothing.

Turns out that kid became permanently blind in one eye because of what you did to him.

For your eighth birthday, he got you your first birthday gift. You only knew when your birthday was because your first-grade teacher had gotten you a cupcake with a candle in it the year before, in response to which you may or may not have cried.

He left a shitty replica of Ichigo’s Bankai outside your door with a folded note taped to it. The note was just a drawing of a smuppet wearing pointy shades with the date scribbled beneath it.

The next day, when you woke up, he was sitting at your desk, ripping the limbs off one barbie doll for every minute he was in your room before you woke up. He maimed eleven of your twelve dolls and when you screamed at him to stop, he chucked one at you so hard you bruised. He told you to meet him on the roof, and he flashstepped away, leaving you alone amongst the scattered plastic body parts.

When you got up there, he brought his fist down on your head for not bringing your sword, and you saw stars. When you returned, he said nothing. He just lunged, swinging his sword with reckless abandon, and you experienced your first strife with shaking hands and wet cheeks.

Your teacher asked you about the welts and cuts spattered across your arms, and you told her the truth. He fucked the CPS officer against your bedroom door and you figured that you’d better come up with a good cover story soon.

When you first met John, in a chatroom that seemed to appear from nowhere, he just seemed like a goofy little kid. He was only a few months younger than you—you were in the same grade, after all—but he just seemed so _young_. You met Jade and Rose in the same chatroom, and soon enough you had _friends_ , somewhere your brother couldn’t control.

Jade was funny and sweet, and she was so enthusiastic about everything that it spread to you. Talking to her was fun and you became very fond of her, feelings that could’ve easily bloomed into a full-on crush.

Rose was a strange one. That’s all you could say about her without things getting weird, you think. She psychoanalyzed the hell out of you, had a weird thing about wizards, and constantly complained about her mom. You wondered if her mom was like your bro. Listening to her, though, made you think that they’re nothing alike. She was like a sister to you, you think, although you’d never had a sister, so you couldn’t know for sure.

John quickly became your best friend, not that that is a particularly stunning achievement, all things considered. Your brother never let you have anyone over or go to anyone’s house, so you’d never really made any friends.

Kids just didn’t seem to like a guy who didn’t smile and didn’t know how to play cops and robbers.

John didn’t seem to care much about your complete lack of social skills, content to let you type away in that candy red text of yours about whatever inane bullshit struck your fancy. He was lenient with you and these days you wonder if that did more harm than good.

He just laughed as you built up intricate walls of irony and coolkid bullshit, teasing you for your maladaptive coping habits. Would things be different if he cared enough to step in?

That’s not fair of you. He was your friend when you needed it most.

What more could you have wanted from him? Was he supposed to crack open his ribs for you, when you refused to even lower your gate?

A tender friendship quickly became the beginnings of puppy love, of a crush that made your guts turn to ice. You knew that your brother fucked men, it was obvious when the moans were deep and gravelly, but you also knew that he hated that about himself. Strange how someone who was so emotionless and distant had a well of self-loathing so deep you could only see it in the afterglow.

“Bro,” You said once, holding up a pair of blood red boxer briefs with come stains on them, “Where did these come from?” You knew where they came from. You heard him come three times before sending the record store employee on his merry way, and Bro certainly didn’t wear briefs.

He stared at you for a long time, eyes hidden behind those enormous shades, arm slung lazily over the back of the futon. His loaded silence didn’t fool you. “I think you know where those came from, Dave,” He drawled slowly but a bit too deliberately, a bit too steadily, “You should just fuckin’ toss ‘em out. If that faggot wanted ‘em he would’a remembered ‘em.”

You shoved them down the garbage disposal and watched them get shredded into crimson ribbons. Still facing the sink, you muttered, “Like you’re one to talk, faggot.”

He was on you in a flash, holding your arms behind your back and purposely dislocating your right shoulder. “I’m no faggot. Faggots _like_ that shit, _like_ takin’ it up the ass like a fuckin’ hooker. I don’t let nothin’ near my fuckin’ ass. I only did that nasty shit to get a discount on new turntables, and you know it, you stupid fuckin’ bitch. Now get the fuck outta here before I dislocate your other shoulder,” He hissed venomously, shoving you towards your room with huge gloved hands, intentionally jostling your shoulder.

You slunk away with your tail between your legs and popped your shoulder back in with the help of your mattress. You cried yourself to sleep that night.

If he was ashamed of _himself_ for liking men, you couldn’t even imagine what he’d think of you.

The next morning, you awakened to an empty house. He didn’t come back for a week and half, and the only reason you didn’t starve was a hidden jar full of coins you’d pickpocketed from assholes at the laundromat. You were trying to save up for a skateboard, but time and time again, you were forced to buy necessities when your brother didn’t bother with you.

The McDonald’s employees started treating you to your McNuggets the fifth time you wandered in wearing the same shirt. They knew your name by the time your brother came back.

The day you turned twelve, he left a note stuck to your bedroom door with a shuriken. It was just a URL that he scribbled down in that barely legible chicken scratch of his. You typed it into Hephaestus and it took you to the WikiHow page on doing laundry. Another one you found later took you to the MapQuest bus route from your apartment to the grocery store. Another was an eBay listing for Rachel Ray’s cookbook.

It was pretty obvious that he was no longer going to do even the bare minimum for you.

Taking care of yourself wasn’t that hard once you got used to it. So besides the moments you remember late in the endless night, your life was pretty normal, all things considered. He wasn’t always fucking CPS officers against your bedroom door or forgetting to feed you. The two of you played video games and dicked around on the computer and strifed on the roof like any other set of brothers. You loved him, after all. He was your brother.

Sure, lying to teachers and police officers and your friends wasn’t exactly normal, but you weren’t dead, so you figured he wasn’t doing _that_ bad of a job.

The usual, day-to-day bullshit made it both easier and harder to deal with the episodes. Is it really abuse if he only goes off the rails some of the time? You were pretty sure he cared about you, at least enough to take you in and keep you (mostly) healthy, so it was heartbreaking every time he pulled some kind of insane bullshit—you thought he loved you, too.

Or at least liked you? Deep down?

When the game started, you realized he was probably just trying to prepare you for everything to come the only way he knew how. He made you self-sufficient and honed your battle senses, knowing he was going to die, knowing what you would have to do once you entered the Medium. At first, you were grateful. It was incredible to think that he didn’t regularly throw you down the stairs for no reason, that you weren’t abused, you were _trained_.

You were trained not to be reliant on him, trained to defeat the monsters of your land, trained not to be hurt when you inevitably lost him. He was shitty to you so you wouldn’t get attached, so you could still win the game even after he died and left you alone. He made you _strong_.

Soon, you realized that you were grievously overpowered.

You watched John—someone who was so soft and dependent and _loved_ —take down imps, ogres, and basilisks with little effort, and ascend to God Tier without breaking a sweat. Why did your brother do that you if he didn’t need to? Was it your fault?

Stumbling upon his dead body was more numbing than anything else. Your brother’s one redeeming quality was his toughness—he was supposed to be the strongest, coolest, most unkillable bastard in the entire goddamn universe. He was always so strong and now he’s dead, impaled like a fucking douchebag shish kabab by his own sword; a sword responsible for 80% of the scars on your body and half of your hospital visits.

You can’t bring yourself to take it and it breaks you.

Later, in your steaming cauldron of soup, you cry for the fifth time in your entire life.

* * *

 

Meeting your friends in person is incredible but nerve-wracking to a degree you’ve never experienced. You know your brother’s dead, you saw his fucking corpse yourself, but you’re still so scared he’ll find a way to ruin things, even from beyond the grave. After all, is death really permanent in Sburb?

Seeing John rocks you to your core, though you try to pretend it doesn’t. It gives you even more feelings to sieve through, more bullshit to repress, more confusion to drown in. Do you still like him? Maybe. Who the fuck knows.

You guess you really will have to figure out your sexuality at some point because when you see Jade, someone you thought you could’ve fallen for, you feel _nothing_ in the way of attraction.

Meeting Rose is hard, harder than you could’ve imagined it’d be. You learn what her home life was like, that any slights against her were fabricated in her own mind, and you see red. How dare she talk down to you, how _dare_ she pretend to know what you’ve gone through. She knows nothing of you.

It takes a very long time for you to act normally around her, to not let your visceral anger bleed into your words and fists. The urge to throttle fades, but does so very slowly, and you wonder if she can tell.

It’s not her fault, though—she didn’t know any better.

You repeat it like a mantra and it eventually sinks in.

Dead Daves pile up and you can’t help but envy them, wondering after the peace of oblivion. Upon discovering the dream bubbles, you realize that not even death can deliver the nothingness you crave so desperately, so viscerally, and you cry for the sixth time in your entire life.

You are the Alpha Timeline Dave, you know you have no choice but to continue on or splinter the timeline and doom all your friends. You’ve already seen too many dead Roses, and dead Jades, and, _fuck_ , dead Johns.

Luckily, there’s always shit to do. There’s always a time loop to complete or an imp to slaughter or a friend to help or a troll to ignore. You can’t wallow in misery if you don’t allow yourself time to think or breathe or acknowledge your trembling hands on the hilt of your sword.

Even Rose, nosy broad and psychoanalyst extraordinaire, doesn’t notice, which you think is strange. She was always so good at sniffing out your emotional distress like some kind of angst bloodhound. You guess you’ve never really seen her (or any of them, actually) in person before, so they have no way of knowing how frayed thin you feel—though, realistically, you’ve always been like this.

The clang of metal on metal _always_ made you flinch. They just can’t notice, what with your shades and clenched jaw. Sometimes you wish they would.

G-d, you just want someone, _anyone_ , to notice how you’re falling apart at the seams.

Being known is your greatest fear, yes, but you’re so fucking tired of dealing with this alone. You’re not sure how much longer you can do it.

On the meteor, there’s nothing to do anymore. Nothing to distract you from the yawning cavity in your chest, nothing to hide your wracking breaths late in the night, nothing but your own mind to fill the gaps. Three years of empty hours.

If you want to entertain yourself you have to invent tasks, like figuring out how to alchemize pepperoni Hot Pockets or build an unshakable skyscraper in Can Town or create a rap so obnoxious it makes Karkat pop a blood vessel. You fill your first week with bullshit, decorating the room you claimed as your own with bits of shiny shit you find lying around like you’re a fucking magpie.

Davesprite would be proud, wherever he is.

Rose and Kanaya are so wrapped up in each other that they barely notice your existence at all, least of all your absence. Vriska and Terezi are very much the same, hiding out in corners of the labyrinth of labs, roleplaying or gossiping or whatever it is that those two do together. Gamzee is not your fucking problem and you’re determined to keep it like that.

You see Karkat, who still proclaims to hate your guts, more than you see anyone else. You think you hate him back, or maybe you should, but you’re mostly indifferent towards him and his dramatics.

You feel that way about most things these days. At least he acknowledges your existence when he yells at you about your shades or your dirty dishes or whatever else got his panties all twisted.

You actually kind of think he’s really funny.

Two weeks or so into the journey, you saunter into Can Town to find him crouched in front of a building that wasn’t there when you left yesterday. It looks nice, and the Mayor seems happy with it, so you don’t acknowledge it or Karkat. He seems equally content with the silent regard.

The two of you work peacefully together on Can Town for an hour, twelve minutes, and fourteen seconds. “Hey, Mayor, do you know what happened to those cans of green beans? I’m gonna make a watchtower,” You say, not taking your eyes off the base you’re building out of dusty dictionaries.

“Mr. Mayor, I think I saw the green beans by the school,” Karkat says in reply, also not taking his eyes off his project, “But maybe the bigger cans of fruit cocktail would be better for that.”

You’re talking to each other through the Mayor, sure, but it’s more words than you’ve heard in over a week, so you won’t complain.

It honestly starts as petty and childish, with Karkat refusing to acknowledge you directly under threat of death or something. You don’t really give a shit either way, but you admittedly feel a little hurt that Karkat seems so disgusted by even the _idea_ of getting along with you, like you’re below him or something. Are you really that bad?

So, uh, you guess you _do_ kind of give a shit, and you’re not happy about that.

In another life, maybe in a thousand other lives, you might not have ever moved beyond petty squabbles and inane bickering. In this one, though, things change. The two of you still talk through the Mayor, but now it kind of feels like an inside joke, like you’ve agreed to keep it up even though you both know you’re just talking to each other. It no longer feels like he thinks he’d drop dead if he actually acknowledged you.

You always doubted the two of you were even capable of being friends, and you’re real glad you were wrong.

As it turns out, you aren’t actually all that different from each other, and that doesn’t annoy you (or him) the way you expected it to. You snicker at his jokes and he laughs at yours, and exhilaration courses through your veins when he doesn’t smack you for rapping or make fun of your snort-laugh. He tells stories about Alternia and complains about how cold the meteor is and reviews whatever dumb movie he watched the night before even though you know he’s seen it before. You half make up stories about Earth and complain about how hot both LOHAC and Houston were and explain how to preserve different types of dead things.

You both have a strong affinity for the Mayor, too, because how could you not? He’s the best.

He eventually stops hating you, and you stop hating him, and you talk to each other like normal people sometimes. You still talk through the Mayor when you work on Can Town, though. You think the Mayor likes to be a part of the decision-making process even if he doesn’t actually talk.

It’s also your inside joke, which is incredible to you. You’ve never really had one before, and sometimes you worry that you’re the only one in on it, just projecting what you want onto Karkat. But when he gently elbows you for forgetting to go through the Mayor, rolling his eyes and smirking with that underbite of his, you realize that he gets it, too.

* * *

 

Six months into your three-year journey, you decide to do something for yourself. It might be the first time that you’ve ever been able to do something you want without getting ridiculed or shut down and it’s _scary_. It’s fourteen years too late but you guess that idioms get it right sometimes.

Better late than never.

You’re more nervous than you thought yourself capable of being when you lightly rap your knuckles against Karkat’s door, the movement too shy and shaky to be considered a real knock. Rustling behind the door puts you at ease, just a little bit—at least you’re not standing outside an empty ass bedroom like the biggest fucking schmuck in the history of paradox space. He cracks the door open and peers at you, eyebrows furrowed but not actually frowning.

Uncharacteristically, he says nothing. He just watches you with dark eyes through the small opening.

It takes you a few gulps to speak but you eventually manage, “Hey, Karkles. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Your anxious voice actually comes across as more a purr than the quavering mess it is, and you count your limited blessings.

He rolls his eyes at you and swings the door open, “Come inside, nookstain. If there was anything even fucking remotely interesting enough for you to interrupt on this meteor I’d be shocked.”

“Well, I’m sure there’s a lot of steamy lesbian sex happening somewhere in the bowels of this labyrinth of fuckin’ wonders. That’s gotta be, like, at least a little interesting.” Words are easy again and you relax completely, swaggering into his room and flopping into his desk chair.

Karkat curls up on his pile of stuffed animals and wrinkles his nose, “Dude, that’s your fucking sister.”

“That _is_ my fucking sister, all she ever does is fuck. I am no fool, Karkat, okay? I know what two dames get up to when left on their lonesome with no chaperone.”

“Okay, this conversation is fucking over. I really do _not_ want to fucking think about this anymore. Did you come here just to be fucking gross? You’ve never been to my respiteblock before, I didn’t even know you knew where it was.”

You pause at this, realizing that your habit of following people around to make sure you know where they are when your back is turned isn’t exactly normal. Rolling your shoulders, you try, “I know where everyone’s rooms are. Imagine if there was an emergency or some shit and not a single fuckin’ one of us knew where anyone else was. That’d be mad stupid.” As you say it, you realize you’re actually making a pretty good point.

Karkat seems to come to the same conclusion. He narrows his eyes at you but nods eventually, huffing, “So that answered only about half of my fucking question.”

A different version of you might’ve teased him and make him repeat his question but what does that other Dave know? He’s just some schmuck who’s probably dead.

“Y’know, Karkat,” You begin, and you watch with glee as he grinds his teeth in preparation for your spiel, “The ways of irony and Cool Guy Syndrome are mysterious and wily. I, myself, am slave to their whims, whipped about every which way like a fuckin’ inflatable arm flailing tube man in a hurricane of subtext. Which way will I be cast next? Alas, I do not know, for they are fickle mistresses. Will my arms flail? Of course. No one can control the flails. But which way will I flail? Will I remain inflated? What fuckin’ goofy ass face will they paint on me? What color will they force upon me? These are all questions to which I will never know the answer, until the time they have come to pass, as it should be. Can any man understand the gods? Can anyone truly know their will? Sometimes, I wonder if even _they_ know their will. Perhaps not.” You pause long enough to breathe and notice that he’s pulled out his husktop and is tapping away on it.

Annoyed, you cut to your point, “I’m obviously here to see you, dickweed. Why else would I schlep all the way out here? You think I ain’t got nothin’ better to do? Every second I’m here instead of spitting sicknasty fires is a crime against the rap community, and you want to deny that? You wound the rap community, sir. It challenges you to a gentleman’s duel. Grab your flintlock pistol and meet in the garden at noon, there will be refreshments served.” He looked up at you when you started talking but went back to typing after your second sentence. You clench your jaw. “Dude, I know I’m being an itty bitty teeny tiny bit obnoxious but you could at least fuckin’ pretend to listen.”

He meets your eyes—or technically shades—over his computer and snorts derisively, “I’d bother listening to your fucking deluge of steaming hot obnoxious garbage if you’d get to the fucking point some time in the next perigee.”

“Are you rushing me, a _literal god of time_?”

“Only because you apparently fucking need it. You’d never accomplish anything without me pushing things along.”

“Is that what you call your incessant bitching? Pushing things along?”

“Did you really, and I quote, ‘schlep all the way out here’ to bitch at me like a fucking human teenage girl during the time of the perigee that her nook convulses and bleeds?”

“Ugh, G-d, you made that sound even grosser than it actually is.”

“Strider. Get to your fucking point or I will literally fucking strangle you with your own goddamn stupid ugly fucking pajama cape for idiot losers who burst in on other sensible people when they’re trying to be fucking productive—”

Listening to him begin to rant, you kind of sympathize with past Karkat who had to listen to _you_ rant. “Okay, okay, jegus. Fuck, y’all got me saying jegus now like it’s a real thing and not a typo I made one time. Your awful vocabulary is infectious I’m calling the CDC.”

His eyes, which aren’t as dark as they were at the beginning of the journey, narrow dangerously at you. You flounder.

“Can we just be friends? Instead of this ‘oh I used to hate you but now I kinda don’t but I also don’t want to admit that I can at least tolerate you now so we’re just gonna keep being mean to each other for no reason’ shit? It’s fucking exhausting,” The words leave your lips faster than you can process them, but once you do you’re pleasantly surprised. That wasn’t as embarrassing as you thought it’d be.

Plus, judging by his red cheeks, you hit the nail on the head.

He is silent for a long time, repeatedly opening his mouth but not saying anything, looking for the world like a gaping red snapper fish. Or for paradox space, you guess? Common phrases and idioms really took a hit when the earth was destroyed and aliens showed up.

Shaking his head, he looks at you. “Why do you want to be friends?” He asks you softly, so fucking softly you aren’t even sure you heard him right at first.

He looks vulnerable, like you’ve never seen him before, and something deep inside you melts at the sight. He’s just as lost as you are, isn’t he?

“I don’t know if you noticed, but we can get along pretty great when we’re not trying to out-dick each other. You’re a pretty cool dude when you’re not flinging anatomically inaccurate penis-based insults every which way.”

He huffs a quiet and reluctant laugh, “Well, you’re not _always_ awful.”

You startle him (and yourself) with a loud bark of laughter, “Y’know what, I’ll take that.”

“So… Friends?”

“Friends.”

And so the two of you cement your tentative friendship.

It’s tough, at first. You’re both defensive and combative, accidentally finding the chinks in each other’s armor and handling them in the absolute worst ways possible. Your fights are explosive but never violent—he yells, and you hiss, and you both storm off while wiping tears on your sleeves. It’s like that for about two months and it’s arguably even more exhausting than it ever was before.

But, when you think about it, after the fights you kind of feel better about whatever dumb shit you were fighting about in the first place.

When you snap at him for pulling on your cape, he calls you his most creative and violent insult yet, but when he accidentally pulls your cape a week later you don’t feel your heart stop the way it did before. You remember the fight, not all the times your brother held you down.

The fights are _cleansing_. You can put it all out there in plain fucking view and he just insults your PJs, not your trembling hands or wobbling words.

You’re healing, you realize.

He’s helping you process in the only way he knows how, in the only way he can, and you’re so grateful. You feel yourself start catching feelings, and that familiar ice clenches your heart like an old friend.

At first, you’re content to just ignore it, to push it to the back of your mind like you do with everything else. It’s easy—natural, even—to repress. So what if you cry more nights than you did before? At least you can cry, now. That’s progress if you’ve ever seen it.

But in the dark silence of the night, you wonder if you’ve actually made any progress at all. You were feeling okay for a while there, healing as best you could, but lately it feels very ‘one step forward two steps back’.

If your night terrors get worse, well, that’s nobody’s business but your own.

Suddenly, you’re falling apart at the seams again, guts spilling through the cracks in your façade no matter how much you scramble to hold them in. You’re like a raw nerve, overstimulated and overwhelmed at all hours of the day. You flinch at every sound and never take off your shades. It must be bad, though, because even Rose and Kanaya notice, and you see them maybe one or twice a week, and only in passing.

You’ve taken to haunting the kitchen at night, hoping to avoid any of the other inhabitants of this flying fucking prison, but your luck does eventually run out.

There’s no milk on the meteor, of course, so you’ve taken to dipping your alchemized pop tarts into alchemized apple juice and pretending that it doesn’t taste like death. Rose catches you in the act, callously flipping the lights on to reveal you crouched over the sink like a rabid fucking raccoon, mouth stuffed with soggy toaster pastry.

She looks surprised, though you can’t decide what about. Probably the pop tarts. Maybe the fact that you’re still alive. When you remember you’re wearing a Charmander onesie, though, you figure it’s probably that.

“Dave,” She greets you, floating over to the fridge to search for G-d knows what. She’s gotten into the habit of flying everywhere, hovering instead of just standing, and there’s something off-putting about it. You could do that too, if you really wanted to, but you _really_ don’t want to. Being reminded of you God Tier powers makes you nauseas for some reason.

Rolling your shoulders, you faux-casually lean away from the sink to respond, “Rose. Up a bit late, I see.”

“I’d say you’re one to talk, but I know you’ve been avoiding us, so this makes sense. Out and about while we’re asleep. It’s almost too good.”

“Have I been avoiding you?”

She laughs minutely, shaking her head in an affectionately exasperated way that makes your heart clench. “You tell me, Dave. Have you been avoiding us?”

Her violet eyes are scanning you in that shrewd manner that you know means she’s analyzing you within an inch of your life. Whatever you say now will just fan the flame, and she’ll start watching you closely and trying to corner you, all in an attempt to remove the stick from your ass and force you to emotionally open up. Sometimes you wonder if she only wants to know for her weird psychology thing.

The softness of the slope of her mouth and her slightly furrowed brows make you realize that’s she’s worried about you _because she cares_. She’s your sister and she _loves_ you, no matter what, and you let yourself forget that too often.

You flop into one of the crappy plastic chairs that TZ put around the repurposed desk you all eat off of, sighing heavily, and allow yourself respite from self-imposed isolation. “Yeah, actually, I have.”

Rose sits, too, not floating an inch off her chair like she normally does. It takes concentration to fly, and you’re touched that’s she’s giving you her undivided attention. It’s also admittedly a little unsettling. She says nothing, watching you with those calculating eyes, but she looks more concerned than analytical. A weight lifts off your chest.

“I’ve, uh, not been doing too, uh, hot lately,” You managed to stutter, taking a moment to breathe and compose yourself, “I think if I try to act normal in front of any of you for longer than two seconds I’ll just fall apart.”

She reaches out to gently touch your wrist, responding, “You were doing so well, though. You seemed happy. What happened?”

“That’s the thing. Nothing happened. I just… realized something in this colossally fucked up brain of mine and now I can’t act like a normal person. It’s like I’m not allowed to be happy for too long or the Alpha timeline will explode or something. It feels like a whole lot of cosmic mumbo jumbo is working against me and it’s just fucking exhausting.”

“What did you realize? Was it something of a more… carnal nature?”

“G-d, cut the shit, Rose, I’m trying to be emotionally vulnerable here. I don’t even want to tell you what it is, now, because you’ll just gloat.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come across that way. I want you to be able to talk to me.”

“You sound just like my fucking middle school counselor. ‘Dave, I want you to feel comfortable being honest with me, please tell me if your brother beats you or if those bruises are from falling off the monkey bars’. Newsflash, I don’t owe nobody nothin’.”

Her eyes widen. “Dave?”

“Fuck,” You mutter, pinching the bridge of your nose, “Listen, I’m not ready to talk about that right now, he’s dead anyway. What I want to talk about is my rampant gayness that you apparently spotted from a mile away. Okay? You were right, congrats, don’t rub it in too much.”

“I don’t plan on rubbing anything in, Dave, I’m sorry if I’ve ever done that to you.”

“It’s whatever.”

“It’s not whatever. You deserve better than that, and I’ll try to do better from now on. What brought on this realization?”

Ah. The million-dollar question, asked at last. You’d hoped to avoid this. “I…” You pause. Should you tell her about Karkat? Or John? Or that boy you kissed on the playground when you were twelve? Would she hurt you with that information?

Can you trust her with it?

Yeah. You can. She’s your sister and she loves you.

You unload _everything_. Way more than you meant to, honestly. You talk about John, and your brother’s repression, and your blooming feelings for one shouty troll. She nods and listens and doesn’t ask probing questions the way a therapist would’ve. When did she grow up and leave you behind?

Rose stands, and so do you. She wraps her arms around you and hugs you for the first time _ever_ , burying her face in your chest, and you can feel her tears through the onesie you forgot you were wearing.

You have to stoop a bit to do it, but you rest your cheek on her hair. It smells of lilac. You wonder what kind of conditioner she managed to alchemize and if she’d let you borrow it.

She cries for what feels like an hour—in reality it lasts ten minutes and thirteen seconds. You clumsily pet her head and hold her in your arms, trying to keep calm, trying to pretend that this _isn’t_ the longest anyone has ever touched you. You’ve only been hugged a few times in your life and each of those were a few-second affair.

Eventually, she pulls back, though not leaving your embrace. Her face is wet and snotty, and you find yourself smiling at her. Her responding smile is so bright it’s nearly blinding.

“No witty rejoinder?” You quip as she dabs at her tears with the sleeve of her pajamas. She laughs and playfully smacks you, finally untangling herself from your long arms. You wonder if hugs are going to become a regular Derse siblings thing.

“No, just some advice if you’re amenable,” She hums, expression open and affectionate. Will you ever get used to that?

You snort, “You talk like Spock, did you know that?”

“You found out my secret.”

“Oh, an illicit love of Star Trek? I should’ve known.”

“You really should’ve.” She’s smiling again, chuckling softly under her breath.

You decide to bite the bullet. “I would, uh, actually like that advice if you were being serious.”

“I was. This is actually something I can help you with. Sexuality and all that comes with it.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, Dave. I’m a lesbian. Something about my rampant gayness that you apparently spotted from a mile away. You were right, congrats, don’t rub it in too much.” She uses your words from earlier and it makes you grin, like full-on grin, for the first time maybe ever.

You reach out to grab her hand. “Two peas in a pod, huh?”

“Something like that,” She says happily, “So I’m qualified, I think, to give you some valuable advice. Deal with accepting your sexuality first. Don’t dive into any specific feelings towards him, because that will muddle everything, and make your life so much harder. Process your queerness first, before anything else. It’s such an integral part of who we are, it’s so important, we need to sort that out before anything else can fall into place.”

“Is this coming from experience?”

“Yes. I jumped into my feelings for Kanaya before even realizing that they were romantic in nature. I felt so confused, and dirty, because my feelings were so tangled up in all the self-loathing and internalized homophobia I hadn’t dealt with yet. I very nearly destroyed our friendship entirely.”

That almost makes way too much sense. For the first time, you’re glad to be stuck on this meteor, to have nothing but time at your disposal.

“Thanks Rose,” You mumble, cheeks burning, as you enfold her in another hug. She clings to you for a solid minute (and two seconds) before rearing back to kiss you on the cheek. Due to your height difference, even on her tippy toes she can barely reach your face, so it’s more of a jaw kiss, but it makes you feel warm all the same.

* * *

 

Processing something so deeply repressed turns out to be a tall order. It takes you two entire months. You spend your days as you did before; hanging out with Karkat, working on Can Town, and making new music. A lot of the music you make now is emotionally charged, venting in the most visceral of ways. It feels really fucking good.

The results, however, are really fucking bad. You don’t care, though—you’ll get better.

Rose alchemized you a guitar for your 14th birthday, and you finally break it out, teaching yourself chords and notes by trial and error.

Sometimes you sing so much, and so loudly, that your voice becomes hoarse.

Karkat even joins you sometimes, tapping out a beat on your desk or shaking an empty can the Mayor filled with rocks he found around the meteor. These moments are less about processing and more about enjoying time with your now closest friend.

For the first anniversary of the meteor’s departure to the Alpha Session, TZ decides to throw a party, and it’s the first time you’ve all been in the same room since that first day. She even has Vriska help her drag Gamzee’s locked fridge into the computer lab. It rattles unsettlingly the entire time.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. You know it has, of course, you’re a literal time god, but it’s still a bit wild to think about. A whole year gone by. What did you do with it?

Watching Karkat and Kanaya try to stop Vriska from setting off fireworks, while Terezi cheers and Rose giggles, you realize than you’ve done pretty well for yourself, all things considered. You’ve got good friends, cool PJs, and newfound understanding of yourself. In this vein of thought, you decide to share your epiphany.

You take a swig of your diet Pepsi, the only soda anyone’s been able to alchemize, and stand up while clearing your throat. Karkat looks at you curiously from his nest, a beanbag filled with Perfectly Generic Spheres. Rose smirks at you while Kanaya puts down her sewing project in anticipation. TZ doesn’t look up from her scribbling, but her hand stills, so you know she’s paying attention. Vriska continues playing with her dice but you know that nosy bitch listens to everything anyway.

“Just thought I’d tell y’all that I’m gay. I know it’s not a big deal to trolls, but it’s kind of a big deal for humans, so yeah. Return to your regularly scheduled programming.”

There’s a beat of silence. Vriska snorts, “Congrats, cool kid. Would you like a medal?”

“Yeah, actually, you got one? Make sure it says ‘Gayest Guy in Paradox Space’ or it’s worthless,” You quip back, flopping into the bean bag next to Karkat as he laughs loudly at your reply.

No one gives you a hard time over it, though you didn’t think they would. It was more for you, honestly, to just put it out there like that. You’re gay. It feels good. In the new session, you’ll make sure homophobia won’t happen again.

The ‘party’ ends up meaning that the six of you just do your normal activities, but you’re in the same room instead of opposite ends of the meteor. It actually ends up being nice, listening to TZ laugh and Kanaya tease Rose while you kick Karkat’s ass at rummy.

You decide to spend more time with the others. You missed them, and you didn’t even notice.

Afterwards, when you leave the computer lab to shower, Karkat follows you out. It’s not a strange action in itself, but the look on his face makes you think he’s got something to say, and you’re not sure if you want to hear it. It almost certainly has to do with your announcement and you’re not sure how sensitive he’s capable of being.

“Dave,” He says softly, snagging the sleeve of your hoodie as you turn to walk into the wing that belongs to the two of you. “Can we talk?”

You sigh, pausing to reign in the defensive barb that wants to sprout from your lips, instead replying, “Is this about me coming out?”

“Coming out? What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means coming out of the closet?”

“Why were you in a closet?”

“Oh, lord have mercy, it means that I told everyone I’m gay. Y’all need to learn human slang, like, yesterday.”

He wrinkles his nose. “No, this isn’t about that. Why would it be? All trolls are ‘gay’ or whatever. I just wanted to ask you something, but if you’re gonna be a fucking phallus, I’ll just go.”

“No, Kar,” You wince, not only at his hurt tone but also the accidental use of the nickname you’ve thus far been too shy to call him aloud, “I shouldn’t have snapped, my bad. We can talk.”

“It’s okay, I know it’s a sensitive topic for humans.” He doesn’t mention the nickname, and his cheeks look a little pink, so you’d wager that he actually liked it. Noted and logged. “I just wanted to know… Are we best friends now?”

He looks so nervous, and you can’t fathom why. He’s staring at his sneakers and fidgeting with the hem of his sweater. All this about being best friends? Is it that important to him?

You consider. Is he your best friend? He’s certainly your closest friend. You trust him, and like him, more than anyone before. And isn’t your best friend just another way of saying your closest friend? Once upon a time, you considered John your best friend, but things change, you guess. He’s still your friend, but you’re not close anymore.

Not like this.

“Yeah, I reckon we are,” You tell Karkat, fighting back a smile before realizing that you don’t have to hold back. You grin at him and he grins back. He hugs you and you hug back.

While you were processing your queerness and identity, you pushed your feelings for Karkat so far to the back of your mind that you genuinely forgot about them. They make themselves known when his arms are around you, his head resting on your shoulder, body warm and smelling of Irish Spring and candy.

You are _so_ fucked.

The two of you are the same as ever, though you now find yourself daydreaming about running your fingers through his hair or wearing his sweater even though it would 100% not fit you. A few months go by and you let them, enjoying your time to goof off before the final showdown, which presumably means your painful death.

That thought isn’t comforting anymore.

Wow. That’s a step in the right direction, but fearing your own mortality is going to make this whole ‘fighting Lord English’ thing kinda hard.

* * *

 

Three and a half months into the second year of your journey, Karkat corners you in Can Town, where you’re crouched over the new high school the Mayor requisitioned. You’re not sure what creamed corn high school is like but you imagine it to be quite delicious.

“Dave,” He says, voice all business, hands on his hips in the cutest way, “We need to talk.”

“Am I in trouble? If this is about your missing DVDs, I promise I’ll return them when I’m done.”

“What? What DVDs?”

Shit. Abort. “I’m kidding. What’s up?” You stand up languidly, unfolding your long limbs and stretching them as he watches you a bit too closely. It’s something serious, then, and that makes you nervous.

He calls you a nookstain and tells you to follow him, though, so you guess it’s not _that_ serious. That’s a relief. This meteor is a chill zone and a chill zone only.

You follow him to his respiteblock and flop into his desk chair, as is customary, and he hesitantly lowers himself into the beanbag he stole from the computer lab. He’s fidgeting with the sleeves of his stupid 69 sweater. His cheeks are pink and his eyes won’t meet yours, which is a shame because they’ve lightened up more and are now almost the same color as yours. G-d, he’s cute, why is he so cute?

The nervous silence goes from endearing to annoying over the course of a minute. You sigh, “What is it, dude?”

“Dave, I… Have something to tell you,” He manages to grit out, face pinched and voice wavering more than you’ve ever heard it. Any annoyance you felt before evaporates when you see how much he’s struggling.

“Yeah, man, you can tell me anything.”

“How much do you know about the quadrants?”

“Like that weirdo troll romance? Not much, not beyond what you’ve told me.”

He wrinkles his nose when you call it weird but doesn’t actually look upset about it, which is a red flag—he’s _always_ defensive of the quadrants. Something must have happened.

Or, perhaps, he had a personal epiphany the way you did all those months ago. When that thought hits you, a number of puzzle pieces fall into place, and you realize that he’s about to come out to you. You’re not sure what the troll equivalent of being gay is, but you figure you’ll learn very soon.

Karkat rubs the bridge of his nose and mumbles, “Well, I think I can’t fit into them. The quadrants, I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“I… Experience attraction and all that moobeast shit the same way you do, as far as I can fucking tell, my feelings are just a fucking amorphous blob instead of just one _type_. I’ve talked to the others about it and what they described is just so fucking _different_ from what I feel, I know I’m not… Like them.”

You stand up and step over to the beanbag, sitting down on the floor next to him and wrapping an arm around his shoulder, saying, “That’s okay. Feelings are feelings and there’s no right or wrong way to experience ‘em. That’s kinda the beauty of emotions, y’know, there’s such a wide spectrum of ‘em. They aren’t governed by any laws, natural or otherwise, and they only mean as much as you want them to mean.

“I’m sure you’re not the only troll who doesn’t subscribe to the romantic norms or whatever, anyway. And even if you are, well, that won’t matter in the new universe—you can be whatever you want, and you could even make it so future generations feel free to love with or without the quadrants. Here on the meteor, and in the new session, you can be whatever you want to be, and it’ll be okay.”

When it’s over, you realize that that was kind of an impressive speech, and it’s evident that Karkat agrees when he buries his face in your shoulder and wraps his arms around your torso.

“Fuck, Dave, you’re right,” He sniffles softly, sounding only the tiniest bit bitter about it, “How did you know exactly what to say?”

You pause. “Honestly? I just said what I would’ve wanted to hear. The truth. There’s nothing wrong with being different.”

“Isn’t there? Isn’t it, well, fucking abnormal?”

“So? Think about it like this. Y’know those CapriSuns we have?”

“…Yeah?” He looks lost as fuck, and you are too, but just a little bit. This analogy might just go somewhere.

“Well, most of them are like Kiwi Ass Eaters or something, yeah?”

He nods.

You feel the momentum swing back into your favor when you say, “And those are good. But remember the Fruit Nut Punchers that Rose accidentally made? The weird ones? Those were good as _fuck_ too. They were probably better. And guess what?”

He looks murderous.

“Those were fuckin’ abnormal! And they were just as good, if not better, and I know being compared to a fuckin aluminum pouch of questionable-at-best juice isn’t my best metaphor, but it works. And, also, even if it’s ‘bad’ or whatever, that’s only by society’s standards. As much as it sucks to think about, society doesn’t even fucking exist anymore. You can do literally whatever you want, be whoever you want, and the only people who will know any better are your like 3 sane friends that haven’t bit it.”

Karkat’s staring at you, piercing almost-red eyes scanning your flushed face and heaving chest (when did you get so worked up?) and you decide to do something you haven’t actually done yet. You slide your glasses off your face and try to push them into your hair before realizing you have your god tier hood up, so you have to clumsily yank that back and _then_ put your shades on your head.

He watches you with an amused smile quirking his lips, one that slips when he looks into your eyes, your red, red eyes. You really hope he’s feeling the same kinship you’re feeling.

“We really were made for each other, huh?” He says softly, wondrously, reaching out with questing fingers toward your face. His touch is warm and comforting, but hey, when the hell did you start needing the comforting?

You swallow your pride, if just for a moment, and pull him into a hug. His hair smells so good that you have to count back from 10 to calm down. “I don’t think there’s anybody else who gets it, Karkat, but I do.”

“I know,” He nods into your shoulder, “Even if both our planets still existed, it would still only be you.”

Apparently emotional transparency is the best drug there is because things are _incredible_ after that. Karkat is still himself, obviously, but he seems so much happier and more sure of himself than you’ve ever seen before. His prickly persona was a defense mechanism, and you knew that, everyone knew that, but seeing him as he really is? It’s breathtaking. If you thought you had a bad crush before, hoo boy, do I have some bad news for you.

He gets taller, too, and by the time you’ve all turned 15, he’s taller than you. It doesn’t seem very fair. You were always the tallest person you knew, besides He Who Must Not Be Named, so it’s downright _unsettling_ to be shorter than someone.

Plus, this new height difference makes your pants situation very uncomfortable, and that’s unforgivable.

* * *

 

You find yourself laughing, one day, sitting in the kitchen as Karkat pretends he’s Rachel Ray. You showed him some episodes you had saved (Rachel is the best, okay) and he fell head-over-heels in love with not only Rachel but also cooking, and cooking shows, in general.

“So, now you crack the fuckin’ cluckbeast oval, and whisk it together with, what, a whisk, I guess? Yeah. It’s a fuckin’ whisk. Whisk that shit until it comes together with the milk,” He chatters as he very poorly mixes the cake ingredients, tongue sticking out in concentration as he tries to squint at the cookbook while still whisking.

He spills the batter on his shirt, and you laugh at him so hard you start tearing up, so he throws a spoon at you, and soon enough the two of you are chasing each other around the kitchen, both covered in batter.

There are many days spent like that, entrenched in laughter and goofiness, and you’ve literally never felt better. You spend a lot of time with Rose and Kanaya, too, and even TZ and Vriska sometimes.

You have friends, a best friend, and all the time in the world to enjoy them.

Halfway through your journey, though, you realize that you don’t actually have all the time in the world. Every minute, the meteor flies closer and closer to the new session, to Lord English, to death, and you’re suddenly worried about how much time you’ve wasted. You don’t want to die anymore.

It’s scary, _so_ scary, and you need to be prepared as best you can.

So you start training again. At first, it’s hard, and you spend many hours curled up in the corner of an empty lab, ears ringing from when your sword clanged against a dummy.

Karkat joins you, which makes it even worse, when you have something coming at you, swinging blades. But every time you collapse, he catches you, hugs you until your heartrate slows, and you slowly learn that this is _different_. He doesn’t want to hurt you. He wants to help you.

“You’re almost done,” He says a lot, “Once we beat Jack, you’ll be done. No more swords or fights or danger.” It helps, despite everything.

He gets better. He gets a _lot_ better. You do, too, but you’ve always been the best fighter of the group. His improvement is so evident, in everything he does and everything he is, in the way he holds his sickles and the relaxed slope of his shoulders. You’re proud of him, prouder than you’ve ever been of anything.

A year and 9 months into the journey, you decide to take a week off from training—three straight months of it is a little much, you think. Karkat seems to agree. You both _ache_.

Now that you’ve both gotten used to keeping busy all day, however, you have _no idea_ what to do with your time off. What did you even do before you started training again? Watch movies? Work on Can Town? Make music?

Fuck, you should make music.

You make music. You actually make a whole album’s worth of music. With some coaxing, you even get Karkat to sing on your album, and his voice turns out to be _really_ fucking nice. It takes even more coaxing, but you eventually convince him to sing the entire thing. The finished product is actually incredible, and when you listen to it all for the first time, you’re shocked that you _made_ that.

When Karkat hears the whole thing, he turns bright red as he listens to himself sing, but he looks so _proud_. He shows everyone on the meteor the album. You also turn bright red.

The two of you are listening to the album, laying on the floor of the empty lab you’ve turned into a dojo, chests heaving. You’re not sure why you chose that as the background music for your spar, but you’re kind of glad you did—hearing Karkat’s soft voice singing in the background as he lunged at you was exhilarating in a way that you can’t describe. It made the fight easier, somehow.

You could focus more on him and less on clanging metal.

When you turn your head to smile goofily at him, he’s already watching you, pupils blown wide and teeth dug into his bottom lip. He’s _incredible_.

The way he’s looking at you now is a look you’ve seen before. Like he wants to devour you. With those lips, and that face, you’d let him.

In fact, right now, you’re close to begging him for it. When he sits up, you wonder briefly if he can read your thoughts. What would he say? What would he do? G-d, you want to hug him and share his air. You want to latch on and never let go.

He’s still watching you, eyes trailing down your shirtless body, and you let your eyes do the same. His chest is wider than yours and covered in a pink-tinted sheen of sweat. The sweat beads and for a moment, a breath, he is wreathed in pearl—he looks ethereal, godlike, and you wonder, as you have many times, why he wasn’t the one to reach God Tier. G-d knows he deserves it.

You sit up as well, hunching over yourself to rest your arms on your knees. “What’s up, Kar?”

Karkat smiles the most affectionate smile you think you’ve ever seen and asks, “Dave, do you like me?”

“Huh??”

“Are you flushed for me?”

You feel your face turn beet red. You try to speak but you choke on your words, stammering nonsense and making his eyebrows crease. He looks affectionately exasperated and it just makes you flounder more.

“I… G-d, fuck, yeah, Karkat. I am,” You say after two minutes and twelve seconds of stuttering.

He’s probably already caught on to you, he wouldn’t ask so nonchalantly otherwise, and you’re tired of hiding from him. He’s the last person you want to hide from these days.

He doesn’t say anything for 38 seconds and you panic, lifting the head you didn’t realize you lowered to meet his eyes. They’re brimming with tears, red and watery, and he’s grinning like he’s won the lottery. Fuck, you love him so much, you don’t know what to do with yourself.

You jump to your feet. He does the same.

You’re running at him before you realize, and he meets you halfway, slamming into you and wrapping you up in a bear hug. “Dave, I’ve been in love with you for half a sweep, how did I not fucking notice that you liked me?”

“Dude,” You say, and your voice cracks, “Me too. It’s been an entire fucking year and I guess I was just… not paying enough attention.”

His arms are so warm around you, and you know you’re both shirtless and sweaty so it’s super gross, but there’s nowhere in all of paradox space that you’d rather be. He buries his face in your hair and you bury yours into his shoulder. His tears are still flowing, you can feel them on your head, soaking onto your scalp, but you don’t care. He’s finally in your arms.

You start to cry, too, relieved and ecstatic.

When you’re facing each other once again, you’re both grinning, with red cheeks and hammering hearts. “Hey…” You begin, reaching up to run your fingers through his hair, “Can I kiss you?”

He laughs wetly, “You could do fucking anything to me and I’d let you.”

Your lips meet his and it’s awkward—not at all like what you’d imagined all those nights alone—but it’s Karkat and he’s _kissing you_ so it’s incredible anyway. His skin is soft like satin, warm and firm beneath your fingers as you run them along his back. Oh, lord have mercy, his touch must be the ambrosia of the gods because you feel nothing short of divine.

A slip of the teeth and you’re bleeding but you don’t care. He does, though, and he pulls back to tend to it. You let him, you love it when he fusses over you, and focus more on him. His voice curls around your name like it was made just to leave his lips. Like you were made just for him.

Honestly, knowing the ridiculous fucking game, it’s entirely possible, and you find comfort in that. You actually _really_ like it.

Maybe he was made just for you, too.

Didn’t he say that, all those months ago? He knew too, even then, and you love him for it.

He dabs at your still-bleeding lip with his discarded shirt, mumbling to himself as he does so. You cup his cherubic cheeks and lightly stroke them with the pads of your thumbs, privately marveling at the feel of his skin all over again. There are still pink tears in his eyes that are fully red, now, and some still trailing down his face like strings of pearls.

Fuck, Karkat is so, so beautiful, and past you was a fucking idiot for ever pretending that he wasn’t.

Past you was a fucking idiot for a lot of things.

Once you stop bleeding and you both stop crying, you hug again and kiss some more. He lures you into his bedroom and pushes you onto the bed you talked him into alchemizing to cuddle a little bit. After that, you talk.

“Are we dating?” You ask as you run your fingers through his hair. The two of you are sprawled on the bed, still, and Karkat’s head is resting in your lap. His hair is thick but soft, somehow, and it seems a little unfair. Your hair is thin but coarse and not at all fun to touch.

He looks thoughtful when he replies, “I mean, I guess so. Do you want to be ‘dating’?”

“I would _love_ to be dating.”

“Okay, then we’re dating.”

And so you’re dating. Things don’t change much, overall, except the fact that everything is better. You don’t have to hold back anymore, and neither does he. The two of you train and kiss and watch movies and cuddle and work on Can Town, and sometimes you make music. You make music together.

* * *

 

Four months pass, and you turn sixteen, and Karkat surprises you with a preserved animal in a jar. He tells you he found it two months into the journey and hid it away because he thought you would like it.

You hug him and sob into his hair and he lets you. After that, he plays Mario Kart with you and lets you win.

Two months after that, Karkat mentions that Kanaya’s wriggling day is coming up and he wants to do something special for her. He recently told her about his quadrant situation, and she hugged the shit out of him and told him that it was okay and she still loves him, so he (of course) feels indebted to her or something. You think about telling him that he shouldn’t feel obligated to do anything, but ultimately decide against it—he’s just doing something nice for a friend that supported him when he needed it, and you can’t fault him for that.

“Do you think she has plans already?” Karkat asks you one day, uncharacteristically nervous, wringing his hands, “She and Rose probably already have fucking plans, what am I thinking!”

“Babe, chill. There are ways of finding these things out. Leave it to me.”

The ‘babe’ thing started about a month ago, after you let it slip in the quiet moments between sleep and lucidity, and you were both immediately in love with it. The two of you fling ‘babe’ around like you’re fucking wild west cowboys having endearment standoffs. It’s the best. Being in love _rocks_.

There aren’t really any pet names in Alternian, according to Karkat, anyway, so he latches onto any Earth ones you tell him about. He’s been known to drop ‘honey’ and ‘sweetie’ on the reg, and even the occasional ‘baby’ when the mood hits him, which makes your knees weak.

That night, you kiss him softly before retiring to your room. You pull out your phone on the way to text Kanaya about this birthday thing.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

**TG: kanaya**

**TG: kanaya**

**TG: KANAYA**

**TG: cmon kan kan this is important**

**TG: i used capital fucking letters kanaya thats how important this is**

**TG: its like matter of national security important**

**TG: madam president we need orders now**

**TG: the russians are seriously seconds away from nuking us**

**TG: i know you dont know what russia is but they dont care about any of that semantics bullshit**

**TG: theyre gonna nuke our goddamn pants off madam**

**TG: our pants will never know what hit them**

**TG: these pants of ours will be completely obliterated dude**

**TG: theyre gonna be so nuked they never even fucking existed in the first place**

**TG: turns out youve been fuckin buck ass naked this entire time and you didnt even know it thats how bad they nuked us**

**TG: say bye to your fucking goofy ass jeans**

**TG: or corduroys or whatever**

**TG: peace the fuck out old navy khakis**

**TG: sayonara parachute pants**

**TG: go back to the abyss from whence you came**

You typed most of that while standing outside your room like a fucking doofus, so you shove your phone into your pocket and stalk into your room. It takes you six minutes and twenty-three seconds to shower—the pipes are cursed or something because they never give you hot water for long than three minutes and forty-two seconds—and after you emerge, you look at your phone where it’s resting on the counter.

There’s still no response. That’s annoying. She’s usually very good about replying. You try again.

**TG: . . .**

You put the phone down again and brush your teeth, using the shitty cinnamon toothpaste that you hate, and then moisturize with the goop Rose gave you when you turned 15. It’s been doing wonders for your skin. It might be black magic, but with these results, you don’t much care.

Every night you become a little more bitter about the toothpaste. Cinnamon is the only flavor anyone has been able to alchemize, even when you tried to copy the punch pattern off a winter mint Colgate card, and it’s the absolute fucking worst. You can’t wait to get off this fucking hunk of rock and use some real fucking toothpaste.

After another five minutes and thirty-seven seconds, you pester Kanaya one last time.

**TG: kanaya**

**GA: What**

**TG: i knew you were there you ass**

grimAuxiliatrix [GA] is now an idle chum

**TG: dude**

**TG: i thought we were tight**

grimAuxiliatrix [GA] is now online

**TG: tighter than karkats clenched asshole**

**GA: Oops**

**TG: oh there you are**

**TG: oops?**

**GA: I Did Not Mean To Log Off**

**TG: rip**

**TG: do better kan kan**

**GA: I Shall Try.**

**GA: However**

**GA: I Make No Promises**

**TG: youre a real riot kanaya**

**TG: you might as well be fuckin stonewall**

**TG: when they threw that brick it was you**

**TG: you were the brick**

**TG: holy shit that actually works**

**TG: its perfect**

**TG: youre gay and everything**

**GA: Dave.**

**GA: What Is It You Wanted From Me**

**TG: ?**

**TG: oh shit yeah**

**TG: sup**

**GA: Is That All?**

**TG: no**

**GA: Please Dont Waste My Time**

**TG: kan kan im insulted**

**TG: here i am**

**TG: absolutely gracing your life with my presence**

**TG: out of naught but the goodness of my damn heart**

**TG: honestly i dont know how you can go so long without some one on one strider attention**

**TG: like you should be dead**

**TG: but youre a vampire so i guess you cant die?**

**TG: whatever**

**TG: your undeath is still a jillion times better when i stone cold saunter into your dms**

**TG: feast your eyes on some bonafide strider a la mode**

**TG: dave strider personal attention asmr**

**GA: David.**

**TG: david ? ?**

**GA: Is That Not Your Full Name**

**TG: holy shit**

**TG: dude**

**TG: no**

**TG: my full name is literally just dave**

**GA: Wow.**

**TG: yeah**

**TG: who told you its david**

**GA: Rose**

**GA: She Said It Is A Common Earth Name**

**TG: i honestly dont know if she was messing with you** **or she really thinks my name is fuckin david**

**TG: its a toss up**

**TG: do i look like a naked ass statue to you**

**TG: or an edgy lesbian pop star with too much glitter and time on his hands**

**TG: i could sing dance magic dance but something tells me you havent seen labyrinth**

**GA: I Do Not Know What Youre Talking About**

**GA: But I Will Ask Her About It Later**

**GA: When She Is Done With Her Meeting With Vriska**

**TG: bad news when those two snarky broads have secret meetings**

**TG: theyre probably plotting something mega stupid** **like some dumb plan to defeat lord english with the power of my repressed gay thoughts or some shit**

**GA: Do You Have Repressed Gay Thoughts Dave?**

**TG: you know full well my gay thoughts are fully expressed**

**TG: but anyway**

**TG: if we double reach around back to the reason i pestered you in the first place. . .**

**TG: a little birdie told me your wiggling day is coming up**

**TG: wriggling day?**

**TG: whatever**

**TG: choo choo motherfucker its your motherfuckin birthday**

**TG: well almost**

**TG: and you didnt tell us**

**TG: your best and only friends in the whole of paradox space**

**GA: Who Told You That**

**TG: i literally just told you it was a bird**

**TG: little bastard just swooped the fuck in**

**TG: we were just minding our damn business spitting straight fire when this bird just came in and got all up in karkats shit**

**TG: not sure which one was squawking more though**

**TG: karkat or the literal bird**

**TG: either way it was a lot of squawking**

**TG: more than enough to rupture the ear drum of the average man**

**TG: luckily i am no mere mortal**

**TG: i have ascended**

**TG: to a level far beyond the average human**

**TG: i am. . .**

**GA: God Tier?**

**TG: a super saiyan**

**GA: Oh.**

**TG: in fact im super saiyan 2**

**GA: Dave**

**TG: or whatever one makes them red furries**

**GA: Dave. Who Told You**

**TG: a bird**

**GA: Was It Karkat**

**TG: bird**

**GA: It Was Karkat.**

**TG: it was karkat**

**GA: Why Did He Tell You**

**TG: idk he just got super fuckin pumped man**

**TG: he was like ITS ALMOST KANAYAS WHATEVER DAY HONEY WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING FOR HER**

**TG: and i was like**

**TG: babe thats cool and all but i got a busy schedule**

**TG: the can town elections are next week and i cant miss em**

**TG: and he said WE CAN GO AFTER THE ELECTIONS THE MAYOR WILL UNDERSTAND YOU DINGUS**

**TG: and then i said**

**TG: ok yeah sounds good babe see you later**

**GA: BABE??**

**TG: oops**

turntechGodhead [TG] blocked  grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

You have made a terrible mistake.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  carcinoGeneticist [CG]

**TG: babe ive made a terrible mistake**

**CG: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?**

**CG: ARE YOU OK?**

**TG: ok first off thanks for worrying about me thats super cute**

**TG: i know its been six months but we never talk on pesterchum anymore so im not used to us not fighting in gray vs red text**

**TG: its the best**

**TG: makes me feel mushy**

**TG: like a week old banana**

**CG: YEAH, YOU’RE FUCKING WELCOME NOOKSTAIN.**

**CG: NOW WHAT IS THIS TERRIBLE MISTAKE YOU WENT THROUGH THE TROUBLE OF PESTERING ME ABOUT? YOU EVEN SAID THAT WE NEVER FUCKING USE PESTERCHUM OR TROLLIAN OR WHATEVER. YOU KNOW YOU COULD'VE** **JUST FUCKING TRANSPORTALIZING INTO MY RESPITEBLOCK.**

**CG: WE’RE MATESPRITS NOW, YOU’RE ALLOWED TO DO THAT.**

**TG: do we have to be matesprits**

**TG: cant we just be normal boyfriends**

**TG: matesprit sounds so wacky and alien**

**TG: it could honestly be some goofy ass xeno organ** **that like spits acid or blinds people or something**

**CG: DAVE I’VE GOT SOME BAD NEWS FOR YOU. TRY NOT TO BE TOO SHOCKED.**

**CG: I’M AN *ALIEN*.**

**CG: BECAUSE APPARENTLY YOU DIDN’T FUCKING KNOW THAT.**

**CG: IT JUST WON’T STICK IN YOUR INFERIOR HUMAN THINK PAN.**

**CG: EVEN THOUGH YOU’VE SEEN ME FUCKING NAKED!**

**CG: AND DEFINITELY KNOW WE DON’T HAVE THE SAME JUNK!**

**CG: AND ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING THE SAME FUCKING SPECIES EVEN REMOTELY!**

**TG: listen you know as well as i do that im all about that alien junk**

**TG: i could write entire fucking prayers about your bulge**

**TG: oh dear sweet jegus**

**TG: thank you for blessing me with my asshole boyfriends glorious xenodick from beyond the limits of paradox space**

**TG: i shall treasure and lick it with reckless abandon**

**TG: worship it as though it were responsible for my salvation**

**TG: but as much as id love to turn this into some weird half ironic half pseudo religious sexting session**

**TG: we actually gotta talk about something the grievous mistake ive just made**

**CG: DAVE.**

**CG: I LOVE YOU AND ALL, BUT IF YOU DON’T HURRY UP AND TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED, I SWEAR I WILL COME OVER THERE AND SHOVE YOUR STUPID FUCKING PAJAMA CAPE INTO AN INDUSTRIAL WHIRLING DEVICE AND JUST FUCKING LAUGH AS THE METEOR IS SHOWERED IN PUNGENT IRON-BASED BLOOD AND BITS OF GAUDY STUPID PJ FABRIC**

**TG: aw babe you love me**

**CG: l:B**

**TG: i love it when you put your horns on your emoticons its seriously the best and cutest thing**

**TG: adorabloodthirsty dare i say**

**TG: also** **i love you too you stupid jerk**

**TG: anyway**

**TG: i may or may not have outed us to kanaya**

**CG: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?**

**TG: believe me i didnt mean to**

**TG: that shit just slipped out all sneaky like**

**TG: there i was**

**TG: being my cool ass self and bothering her a bit**

**TG: just horsin around and shootin the shit tryin to find out if shes already got bday plans like i said i would**

**TG: when during a dramatic retelling of past events**

**TG: i called you babe**

**TG: which for anyone with eyes is a dead giveaway that were dating now**

TG: or flushed i guess

**TG: both?**

**TG: both**

**CG: BOTH**

**TG: nice**

**CG: DAVE, WHY IS THIS A BAD THING?**

**TG: what**

**TG: dating or whatever?**

**TG: its totally not a bad thing**

**TG: in fact its probably the best thing to ever happen to anyone ever**

**TG: seriously like those losers who won the lottery** **or like fucked a celebrity or something**

**TG: they aint got nothing on us**

**CG: NOT THAT, BULGELICKER.**

**CG: I MEANT ABOUT KANAYA FINDING OUT.**

**CG: WEREN’T WE GOING TO TELL HER ANYWAY?**

**TG: oh**

**TG: uh**

**TG: idk**

**TG: i guess we did say that we would**

**TG: but when it slipped out like that i just**

**TG: instinctively flipped out**

**TG: like forget doing a pirouette off the handle i just did a fuckin kamikaze swan dive off that shit and then exploded**

**CG: DAVE I’M COMING OVER.**

**CG: TRY TO CLEAN UP ALL THE SOCKS ON THE FLOOR BEFORE I GET THERE, YOU KNOW THAT SHIT DRIVES ME FUCKING NUTS.**

**TG: karkat wait**

**TG: um**

**TG: fuck**

**TG: you cant come in rn**

**CG: ?:B**

**TG: youre so fucking cute holy shit dude**

**CG: BABE. GET TO THE FUCKING POINT.**

**CG: I’M TWO SECONDS AWAYS FROM DRAGGING YOU OUT OF YOUR RESPITEBLOCK BY THE HOOD OF YOUR UGLY FUCKING PAJAMAS AND PAPPING YOU INTO SUBMISSION.**

**TG: i gotta tell you some shit man but i**

**TG: i wont be able to do it irl**

**TG: its gotta be over pesterchum because im a fucking stupid and repressed disaster**

**TG: and if i dont say anything about this now i dont think i ever will**

**CG: YOU KNOW I HATE WHEN YOU SAY THAT SHIT ABOUT YOURSELF, BUT OK.**

**CG: I’M LISTENING.**

**TG: god ok well**

**TG: when i was growing up**

**TG: my**

**TG: guardian guy**

**TG: fuck i dont even want to call that fucker my brother but yeah that guy**

**TG: yknow my human lusus or whatever the fuck**

**TG: that guy who lived in my house and sometimes fed me**

**TG: was really strict about emotional shit**

**TG: like one time i asked him if i could have a friend come over**

**TG: i mustve been what 6**

**TG: maybe 7**

**TG: and he said yes which was weird**

**TG: so of course lil baby me gets so fucking pumped because this was my first friend ever and my first time ever seeing anyone my age outside of school**

**TG: little did i know that my awful fucking brother only said yes to teach me one of his twisted ass lessons**

**TG: when the kid came over bro did his fucking best to make it the worst experience literally ever in the history of the fucking planet**

**TG: he dressed like a cheap hooker with fishnets and a leather skirt and a fucking corset**

**TG: and fed us burnt chicken and made sure the entire apartment was covered wall to fucking wall in smuppets**

**TG: like legit every surface was drowning in plush rump to the point where it was obscene**

**TG: im pretty sure my little friend got an eyeful of bros nuts when he bent over in that fucking miniskirt because god forbid the man wears underwear**

**TG: and i know i sure as hell saw all his junk**

**TG: so the kid called his mom to come pick him up and my bro answered the door like that**

**TG: in a fucking miniskirt and corset and his goofy ass anime shades**

**TG: and like idk if you ever saw my bro but he was like 6 foot something and ripped as shit so it looked ridiculous and dirty on him because he like intentionally got the cheapest and smallest ones he could find**

**TG: and the mom was so fucking appalled she told everyone in the pta to stay the fuck away from me and my pervert brother**

**TG: and soon enough none of the kids at my school would so much as look in my general direction because their moms told them that i would turn them gay and give them aids or some other ridiculous fucking fearmongering bullshit**

**TG: and if that shit wasnt enough**

**TG: bro went out of his way to fuck not only that kids dad but two of my teachers**

**TG: so even the faculty at my damn elementary school couldnt fucking look at me**

**TG: all because i told him i had a *friend***

**TG: so you can imagine what kind of reaction he had when he found out i had a crush despite his best fucking efforts**

**TG: i thought he was going to kill me**

**TG: and when he found out it was a guy i liked** **he almost did**

**TG: karkat**

**TG: one time i smiled because i got a new video game and he broke three of my ribs**

**TG: another time i laughed during a movie and he sliced my stomach open so bad i needed surgery**

**TG: when i was 9 i hugged him because he bought me my first set of turntables and he smacked me so hard i got concussed**

**TG: i told him i loved him and he didnt speak to me for a month and a half**

**TG: when he found out i spent his money on johns birthday present he spiked all the drinks in the apartment with roofies and videotaped me stumbling around and drooling all over everything and posted the videos on his shitty porn site**

**TG: fuck**

**TG: what im saying is that i was punished for showing emotions or being attached to anyone or even just fucking having friends**

**TG: and he was even more repressed about his sexuality than i was**

**TG: so he took it out on me and basically tried to beat the gay out of me every time i so much as looked at a guy**

**TG: im fucking lucky he didnt kill me when he caught me watching queer as folk**

**TG: so yeah**

**TG: i freaked out when i let it slip that im in a gay relationship**

**TG: it being kanaya didnt mean anything bc my heart still started palpitating and my ears still started ringing**

**TG: its not rational or normal**

**TG: but none of the shit that happened to me is either**

**TG: fuck**

**TG: i**

**TG: my bad team**

turntechGodhead [TG] blocked  carcinoGeneticist [CG]

You swear to yourself and push yourself away from your desk, resting your heavy head in your hands. You just fucking unloaded all your damn baggage like your fucking flight from Repressionville landed squarely at Oversharing International Airport in the city of Childhood Trauma. Fuck.

You know blocking Karkat like that was super immature of you, but you also feel like you kinda deserve to be a little immature. Reliving that in technicolor did your mental state no favors.

Your childhood was basically beaten out of you, so yeah, you’re allowed to be childish sometimes. So sue you.

Or don’t, really, because Terezi would definitely take that expression way too far. Knowing her, she’d host some kind of over the top trial for Bro’s already half rotted corpse and end up giving him the death penalty fifteen years too late. Like that would stop the nightmares, or the smothering panic you still feel every time you hear clanging metal, or the lockjaw you get when they remind you that you’re gonna meet him again.

Even if it’s not really him, you know you’ll break when those orange eyes meet yours, even through shades.

You know his face better than you know your own, after years of watching every square millimeter with bated breath to puzzle out if you were going to get your ass kicked that night. If he was going to berate you or ignore you. If he was going to feed you. You were never able to figure it out, but you were able to figure out how many freckles he has, and how many times his nose was broken. Your own nose was broken three times.

It never did set right.

The soft swoosh of the door opening makes your heart stop, and before you know it you have your sword deployed, tears streaming down your face.

Why the fuck is he here?! He’s dead, he’s dead, _he’s dead_!

When nothing attacks you, you hesitantly open the eyes you didn’t realize you screwed shut. Karkat is there, hands held in the air like ghosts, crying viscous red. You drop your sword with an echoing clatter and flashstep to him, wrapping your long arms around him and sobbing into his shoulder. He pets your hair and tells you he loves you. You sob even harder and bury your face in his shirt.

Somehow, despite you pretty much dead weighting him, he manages to maneuver you so you’re curled up on your bed, and he wiggles so your head is in his lap.

He says nothing for a very long time. Twenty seven minutes and fifty three seconds. You suspect it might be his longest silence ever, or at least the longest you’ve been present for.

His fingers gently comb through your blonde mop, lightly scratching at the scalp and carefully detangling knots. You continue to sniffle and sob, rubbing your leaky nose on the front of his sweater, but he doesn’t seem put off. He’d normally yell at you for even _thinking_ of getting snot on his clothes.

This is a special situation, you guess. A rare exception.

Man, what kind of idiot are you? You’ve only been dating this guy for a few months and you’re already breaking down in front of him? Over Kanaya finding out something you were going to tell her anyway? Get it together, Strider. You’re better than this.

Sitting up is tough with his wicked fingers still working your scalp but you do it anyway, hoisting yourself up on the power of shame alone.

You don’t know where your shades are, but you force yourself not to look for them—he’s already seen _them_ , there’s no need to hide. You don’t need those fucking glasses. Repeating that to yourself a hundred times doesn’t stop you from glancing at the desk and sighing in relief when you see your shades folded up all nice and neat.

He looks over his shoulder and peers at the shades before leaning away from you, fingers already stretching out toward them, “Do you want them?”

He’s so fucking considerate of you it almost hurts. He hates those shades. You’re overcome with affection and you somehow choke out, “No. It’s just… a nervous tic I guess. Thanks.” The words are croaky and clipped. Your mouth is so dry you think of deserts and endlessness. He grunts at you and opens his arms, and you gladly cling to him like a koala and he nuzzles your hair.

He kisses your forehead like one kisses a newborn baby.

You’re not really crying anymore but you’re content to be held, and he is evidently content to hold. He doesn’t say anything, just rubs your back and rests his cheek on the crown of your head, allowing the silence to spread. You feel like you should doze off, but you don’t. He doesn’t either.

“Hey, you wanna hear something?” He asks you after minutes or maybe hours (it was exactly 6 minutes and forty-four seconds, thanks Worst Aspect Ever) of stroking your red cheek with his thumb.

Curiosity piqued, you nod, not particularly keen on trying to speak with such a nasty case of cottonmouth.

“I always wondered if people could change. I guess I hoped they could, because _I_ wanted to change. Because I wanted all the shitty idiots around me to change. And living on Alternia, I figured out that no one really changes. Everything is always the fucking same, no matter what we do, no matter what kind of assbackwards crazy hoofbeast shit happens to us. It was disheartening at first and then became comforting, because to me it meant that I could continue to be the disgusting little wriggling fuckup I was. It was easier to stagnate, easier to be angry and volatile and impossible, because as soon as those layers were peeled back there was fucking nothing left underneath. So I made those layers as hard to peel back as possible, I fucking nailed those walls into my thinkpan and told myself that this was how things were supposed to be.

“When I found out we were going to be stuck on this meteor for three entire years with just you and Rose, I cried for three days. Alone with the only two people in all of paradox space that weren’t intimidated or successfully deterred by my angry fucking flailing, the only ones who saw me for what I really was. Nothing. Just an empty husk filled with hot fucking air. It scared me, Dave. It scared the shit out of me.

“I hated you, and her, for a long time because of it. It was the kind of hate that made me disgusted with myself, too. I didn’t know why I hated you, I just _did_. It felt natural and easy and I fell into it so fucking fast. Every time you teased me, it was just fueling the flame, that raging fucking inferno of self-loathing that kept me going from one day to the next. But then you stopped. You would just silently sit next to me in Can Town and hand me the right color chalk, no snark or irony or bullshit. No one has ever done that with me. Just sat, just existed in each other’s spaces.

“The others, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by fucking now, were the same as me. They—we—all had some kind of stupid fucking schtick, some routine we did to pretend that we weren’t hollow and dying on the inside. Then they all started dying on the outside, too, and suddenly we were alone with each other and ourselves. And I realized one day, as I stacked cans and you hummed beside me, that I was tired of being empty.

“Dave, you did that for me. You helped me grow out of what I thought was my fate. You’ve been through hell and back and you’re still trying, you work so hard every single fucking day just to make sure Rose isn’t worrying about you. Sweetie, that is so fucking incredible, I still don’t know how you do it. You’re the toughest man I’ve ever met, and there’s no one that has existed or will ever exist that I will respect more than you. I know its hard to see yourself like this and not feel like the biggest pile of hoofbeast shit, but this is so _good_. It only takes a coward to ignore a problem. It takes a hero to confront it.

“And I know, blah blah blah, you’re not a hero, whatever. We joke and tease and shit but you need to know that I respect and admire you, Dave. No fanfare, no moobeast shit. You’re so _strong_. I love you, you fucking doofus, and you need to understand that. I don’t love you despite what happened, or because of what happened. You’re you, and I love the you that you’ve become. Whatever happened to make you this way doesn’t cast a bad light on you, if anything it makes you seem even more incredible because you still ended up a fucking hero after all that.”

You’re a little flabbergasted.

Well, actually, you’re a _lot_ flabbergasted. That was one hell of a speech. How long has that been cooking in that thinkpan of his? With the way it started, you think he’s been holding on to it for a long time.

G-d, you really needed to hear that. He said everything that you needed to hear, and he said it so lovingly, so emotionally. He made himself just as vulnerable as you feel and that’s so special, so poignant—he’s never cracked open his own shell before, just let you peak through the fault lines, and you’re grateful beyond belief to see him split open for you.

He buries his face in your hair and you nuzzle his shoulder like a little kitten. “Karkat…” You breathe into the t-shirt you just realized is yours, “Thank you. I… Think I really needed to hear that.”

Karkat pulls back to look into your eyes. It’s intimate, red iris meeting red iris, and it makes you smile like a lovestruck doofus. Because, well, you _are_ a lovestruck doofus. You stretch forward to press your lips against his, and you can feel him smile into the kiss.

You’re grinning so wide you’re struggling to move your mouth in a way that can actually be classified as kissing.

“I love you,” You hum as you pull back, “You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met. I know you said I’m the strong one, but you’re strong, too. Maybe even stronger than me. The way you tried to keep your team together after they started dying? The way you protected them without hesitation, even when it put you in danger? The way you held strong, even when your session fell apart, even back on Alternia when you were afraid for your life every second of every day? Fuck, babe, _you’re_ the hero. You are so fucking amazing I don’t even know what to do with myself half the time.”

He snorts and leans in to brush his nose against yours, mumbling, “Well, then, I guess we’re both strong as fuck. I love you, too.”

* * *

Meeting Dirk is just as hard as you thought it would be. It’s awkward and painful, but it’s a relief to see that he’s just as emotionally constipated as you are. He feels everything as agonizingly as you do. His façade is ice cold and truly emotionless, but you’ve spent a lifetime learning to read between the lines of the planes of that face, and you know he’s just like you.

He’s a scared little boy, afraid of opening up, afraid of the reactions to what’s underneath the posturing, afraid to reveal his rotting core to the eyes of those who matter. It’s like looking in a mirror.

Fighting Lord English, though, is surprisingly not the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Sloughing through the bayou of your psyche and trying to salvage the bits of yourself that your brother didn’t kill was much harder. The physicality of fighting is familiar, and therefore comforting, now that you have a solid foundation beneath your feet.

When the dust settles, you’re in a new session, one birthed from your blood, sweat, and tears. (And maybe a few corpses for good measure.) Earth C comes with infinite possibilities, and you’re not sure what to do with yourself.

You have eternity on your hands. What will you do with it?

Fuck. You don’t know. When you pulled everybody five thousand years into the future, you skipped the era you would’ve liked to touch down in. What the hell are you supposed to do here?

Everyone took a vote, and as a group you decided to travel to around 2012, a few years ahead of where you, Rose, John, and Jade left your Earth and right about when Jake and Jane theirs. It was Roxy’s suggestion, as she had the whole of history at her fingertips for her entire life, and Dirk seconded it.

You wanted to land in the late 1800s. That’s about when paleontology started to take off—how could would it be to be the one to discover a dinosaur species? You know where everything is, you could style all over all those English dipshits. This idea was pretty resolutely shot down, though, and you’re not sure what there is for you in 2012. Maybe a tech startup? Sounds soulless.

Less than twenty-four hours after the five-thousand-year jump, you’ve fallen back into old habits, haunting places where you think no one can find you.

Thoughts of your next step are banished to the recesses of your mind. It’s easy like breathing.

You have Karkat and Rose. You have all your friends and all of existence spread out before you. This is good, isn’t it? A fresh start? You will start a new life, a better life, a _happy_ life, here in this universe you created. It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bakugoufuckski) and [tumblr](https://transgenos.tumblr.com) and [ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/oredatte)  
> hope you enjoyed!


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